Come with me, dear readers, on another adventure in “Best Of / Worst Of Character Moments”. Our focus this time is all about the “Other” category, which usually means a movie review. And it is so.

We’re going to be taking a look at our main characters in “Dr. Cyclops”!

Now, this is a movie that I had thought was going to be cheap and boring to sit through and I wasn’t at all interested in it. But, then I found myself liking it, actually and am glad that I did review it after all. But, is it because our characters were impressive that brought me over to the movie’s side?

Mary: Mary is a very clever woman and adapts most readily to her new circumstances, making plans for escape, directing activities and using herself as bait to keep a predator’s focus off of the men collecting materials. She earns herself a KUDO.

Pedro: Pedro plays the hero and leads his dog away from the group, setting himself up as a target for Dr. Thorkel in order to keep the others safe. KUDO

We have to give it up to Dr. Alexander Thorkel who has managed to not only theorize, but actually build a machine that can render living subjects into a small percentage of their original size without killing them [mostly] using nothing more than magical radiation! He’s brilliant and his discoveries earn a KUDO[even though he’s obviously tampering in Things Man Wasn‘t Meant to Know, I’m going to go with the regular kudo instead of the anti-kudo villains would ordinarily receive].

Dr. Cyclops/Thorkel earns himself an Anti-KUDO for good villainy in managing to shrink down human beings without killing them off in the process.

Our Characters: Oh, the villainy!

Dr. Bullfinch- Our lead scientist throws morals out of the window as soon as he discovers Dr. Thorkel’s radium deposits and has thievery on his mind. DEMERIT

Dr. Robinson- Mary isn’t immune to the impulse of greed. DEMERIT

Mr. Stockton- Bill wants in on that radium money. DEMERIT

Mr. Baker- Steve would like to cheat Thorkel out of his radium mine. DEMERIT

Mr. [Yakonelli]- Pedro doesn’t do anything to earn a demerit, but his obsession over his horse does turn irritating.

I think that Dr. Thorkel was supposed to start off as a relatively good guy, until he became obsessed with his work. This is why I must hand him a DEMERIT for the murder of Dr. Mendoza. Our ‘mad’ doctor didn’t need to become a villainous swine for his work.

I was tempted to give Dr. Mendoza a demerit for stupidity. You NEVER tell the mad scientist, killer villain, or generally any heartless bad guy that you’re going to stop them or turn them into the authorities if you value your life. You play along and stroke their egos and then you get help later! But, [Paul] was astonished at the time, so I’ll let him slide due to excited utterance, rather than outright stupidity. He’s still just as dead, though.

We have another DEMERIT to hand out. This one goes to the Anonymous Mule Owner who reserved some donkey’s for our scientists’ use to get to Dr. Thorkel’s compound, but then sold them out from under them without even the decency to let them know they need to arrange other transport before arrival. What a jerk!

I’m giving a behind-the-scenes collective DEMERIT to Gerard Carbonara, Albert Hay Malotte and Ernst Toch… the musical soundtrack on this film is awful. It irritates far more often than it assists and quickly drives me nuts.